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The Japan-US Alliance in the Twenty-First Century

Indispensability of US Extended Deterrence

Satoh Yukio

This chapter discusses the Japan-US Alliance with particular focus on US extended deterrence, with nuclear deterrence at its core. My central argument is that the Japan-US Alliance and Washington’s extended deterrence are the cornerstones of the regional security architecture underpinning the stability, predictability, and prosperity for the East Asian order amid North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile development, and China’s rise in the twenty-first century.

The theme of this book centers on the continuities and changes in Japan’s foreign policy in the twenty-first century. Japanese reliance on US extended deterrence profoundly symbolizes continuity bridging the Cold War and post–Cold War eras. By contrast, Japan’s role in alliance cooperation with the United States has expanded significantly after the Cold War, as will be discussed in the following pages. More importantly, the primary role of the Japan-US Alliance has changed from one that protected Japan as part of the US global strategy to deter and contain the Soviet Union, to one that sees both countries cooperating to deter North Korea and hedge against growing strategic challenges from China and Russia.¹

The alliance can be discussed in many different contexts. The Japan-US Security Treaty is essential not only for the defense of Japan, but also for the security of South Korea. Alliance cooperation between Tokyo and Washington contributes to regional stability in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond. For example, the home-porting in Japan (backed by Japan’s generous host nation support) of more than twenty US vessels, including an aircraft carrier, ensures effective US naval presence in the Indo-Pacific. Moreover, the alliance, which is based on shared universal values, could be a significant political force in regional as well as global geopolitics. Domestically, the long-pending issue (since 1996) of relocating the Marine Corps Air Station in Okinawa could have a destabilizing impact on alliance cooperation if it would not be completed as agreed between Tokyo and Washington. Likewise the alliance could also be destabilized if any serious accidents or crimes were to be attributed to US forces, particularly in Okinawa.

A resurgent Russia under President Vladimir Putin seeks to expand its sphere of influence (as evidenced by the annexation of Crimea from Ukraine and Russian intervention in Syria) and recover its former superpower status so that it is strategically on a par with the United States once again. Moscow has also extended its strategic attention to Asia in the last decade. Apparently, Russia and China are trying to change their respective regional orders, which are, in their eyes, dominated by the United States. They have a common interest in breaking up what they regard as the US-led unipolar world. The US intelligence community now realizes that “China and Russia are more aligned than at any point since the mid-1950s,”2 which contrasts with Washington’s Cold War perspective of once regarding China as a strategic partner against the Soviet Union.

To further complicate regional strategic conditions, nuclear weapons and technology have proliferated since the end of Cold War. The nuclear armament of India and Pakistan took place shortly after the end of the Cold War. Although Iran’s attempts to develop nuclear weapons have been frozen (albeit temporarily), North Korea has been relentlessly developing its nuclear weapons and missile capabilities. Against this backdrop, the primary role of the Japan-US Alliance has transformed from one that protected Japan as part of the US global strategy to deter and contain the Soviet Union, to one in which they cooperate to deter North Korea and hedge against the growing strategic challenges from China and Russia.

There is no doubt that Japan’s own defense efforts are central to ensuring the credibility of US extended deterrence. But it has taken a long time for Tokyo to acknowledge the link between Japan’s defense efforts and US extended deterrence. The Japan-US Alliance has been essential for Tokyo’s security ever since the country recovered its sovereignty in 1952 following the US-led occupation after its surrender at the end of World War II. Japan remained unarmed during its seven-year occupation by the US-led Allied Forces. Tokyo therefore sought US military protection and came under the latter’s nuclear umbrella through a bilateral security treaty, as it recovered independence in 1952 against the backdrop of the Cold War and the height of the Korean War. Later, the current security treaty replaced the 1952 treaty in 1960.3

Tokyo committed to “increasingly assume responsibility for its own defense” in the 1952 security treaty. Accordingly, the Japanese government has been building up its ground, maritime and air Self-Defense Forces (SDF) since their inception in 1954, and more systematically since the first National Defense Program Outlines (NDPO) adopted in 1976.⁴ These guidelines have since been renewed five times (in 1995, 2004, 2010, 2013, and 2018) to strengthen the SDF’s capabilities.

But the Japanese public has been slow to support the government’s policy. During the Cold War in particular, post–World War II pacifism (or anti-militarism) and anti-nuclear sentiments dominated public opinion and impacted the level of public support for both the alliance with the United States and Japan’s own defense efforts. Though the pro-alliance Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) was a perennial party-in-power since 1955 during the Cold War era, the pacifistic and anti-US Japan Socialist Party (JSP)—the largest opposition party—attracted considerable support from a segment of voters and leftist labor unions.5 The JSP advocated a policy of unarmed neutrality and was long opposed to the Japan-US Security Treaty.

Most symbolically, Prime Minister Kishi Nobusuke, grandfather of Prime Minister Abe Shinzo, had to resign after his government had secured the ratification of the 1960 security treaty despite strong public protests. Moreover, the Japanese government had kept defense spending below 1 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) almost consistently for over six decades since the SDF’s inception. While this is a profound continuity in Tokyo’s defense budget and policy, Japan’s defense spending has been steadily increasing in recent years and reached $47.3 billion in 2018, the eighth largest in the world after the United States, China, Saudi Arabia, Russia, India, the United Kingdom, and France.⁶

Japanese leaders are, however, considerate to the other Asian peoples’ anxiety over the resurgence of a militaristic Japan. In 1977, then prime minister Fukuda Takeo’s speech on Japan’s fundamental policy toward Southeast Asia stressed that Tokyo would “reject the role of a military power.”⁷ Most recently, the 2018 National Defense Program Guidelines (NDPG) followed earlier NDPO/NDPGs by pledging not to become a military power that would pose a threat to other countries.

The so-called “peace” constitution, promulgated in 1947, had also restrained the expansion of Japanese defense capabilities. The constitution, drafted by the US-led occupation authorities of the time, declares: “The Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as a means of settling international disputes.” Although the public has come to accept, if somewhat gradually, the SDF’s role in maintaining the country’s inherent right of self-defense, the scope of “self-defense” permissible under the constitution has remained a bone of political contention. It was only in 2016 that the SDF was authorized to exercise, albeit to a limited extent, the right of collective self-defense.

Against this backdrop, it was pressure from Washington that moved Tokyo to increase its defense budget. American criticisms in the 1970s and 1980s that Tokyo was a free rider on US defense commitments added to the pressure for Japan to increase its defense spending. At the time, the United States regarded the Japanese model of state-led, export-oriented developmental model as adversarial to theirs.

Similarly, it was only after Japan was internationally isolated for its failure to participate in the US-led military campaign during the Persian Gulf War of 1990–1991 that Tokyo permitted the SDF to participate in United Nations (UN) peacekeeping operations and other international humanitarian and reconstruction activities. In fact, Japan’s deployment of SDF troops to Cambodia on a UN peacekeeping mission in 1992 marked the first time it did so after joining the UN in 1956.

The political dynamics behind Japanese defense efforts have been changing since the end of the Cold War, largely due to the increased threats from North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile development, and the rise of China. After Pyongyang tested the Taepodong missile over Japan’s main island of Honshu in 1998, Japanese defense efforts came to be driven by its threat perceptions rather than American political pressure. Japan-US defense cooperation for ballistic missile defense has since progressed, and it now includes the two countries’ co-development of a new interceptor (SM3 Block IIA).

Washington has been enthusiastically assuring Tokyo of its preparedness to protect Japan with nuclear deterrence since the Cold War era. US presidents (including President Trump) have given such assurances to Japanese prime ministers. US secretaries of state and defense have likewise made similar assurances in the official statements issued with their Japanese counterparts at the Japan-US Security Consultative Committee (SCC),8 an official mechanism for consultations under the current Japan-US Security Treaty. While Washington’s declaratory policy has stressed the role of conventional forces in US deterrence strategy since the end of the Cold War, the centrality of nuclear forces for deterrence remains unchanged.

By contrast, the Japanese attitude toward US nuclear deterrence has not been steadfast, changing from reluctant acceptance to qualified reliance. Although Tokyo had placed itself under the US nuclear umbrella, it had long been trying to distance itself from US nuclear strategy. Even now, the Japanese generally regard the US nuclear umbrella as a necessary evil at best. Behind this wariness over the US nuclear umbrella is the Japanese public’s strong anti-nuclear weapons sentiment. This sentiment is attributable to the sufferings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that are still in public memory.

In the light of this history, it was epoch-making that the government of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) recognized—for the first time ever—in the NDPG it adopted in 2010 that US extended deterrence with nuclear deterrence at its core was essential for Japan’s security. The 2010 NDPG also pledged, again for the first time, that Tokyo would make efforts to enhance the credibility of US extended deterrence.

The first National Defense Strategy (NDS) adopted in 2013 by the conservative government led by Prime Minister Abe, as well as the two NDPGs adopted in 2013 and 2018, repeated the Japanese position toward US extended deterrence expressed in the 2010 NDPG. Tokyo also began to be engaged in the US-led dialogue over US extended deterrence through a newly made mechanism in 2010.⁹ That Japanese participation in the Japan-US Extended Deterrence Dialogue aroused little opposition in public opinion testifies to changing Japanese perceptions vis-à-vis the US nuclear umbrella. Exposed to growing threats from Pyongyang’s progressing development of nuclear weapons and missiles, the Japanese realized the need to rely on US extended nuclear deterrence.

Tokyo’s set of Three Nonnuclear Principles (of not possessing nuclear weapons, not producing them, and not permitting their entry into the territory)10 is a political embodiment of the public’s strong anti-nuclear weapons sentiment, and not the product of US extended nuclear deterrence. That Japan, with capabilities to develop nuclear weapons, upholds a nonnuclear policy is, by itself, a significant contribution to the global cause of nuclear nonproliferation. But it is also true that US extended deterrence has made it possible for Tokyo to pursue its nonnuclear policy without worrying about nuclear threats to the country.

Washington, for its part, came to attach a growing importance to the nexus between extended deterrence and nuclear nonproliferation as it faced the post–Cold War nuclear proliferation. Then US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis stressed in his preface to the February 2018 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR): “US nuclear weapons not only defend our allies against conventional and nuclear threats, they also help them avoid the need to develop their own nuclear arsenals.”¹¹ Although the notion was repeatedly underscored in previous publicized NPR reports, it was the first time that the idea was stressed in the defense secretary’s preface.

Japan is a typical case fitting Mattis’ statement. Indeed, there have long been voices in the United States expressing the fear that Tokyo might eventually opt for nuclear armament. One might argue that US concerns over Japan’s possible nuclear armament could well be an acceptable reason for the credible maintenance of US extended deterrence. Yet, there is no doubt that the US commitment to extended deterrence based on shared security interests and concerns has been more productive in alliance cooperation than American anxieties. That North Korea’s nuclear and missile development program has made Japan-US defense cooperation stronger is a case in point.

Japan’s Nuclear Option?

Voices advocating Japan’s acquisition of an independent nuclear deterrence are an extreme minority in the country. But concerns about Tokyo’s nuclear option persist among foreign pundits.¹² Nuclear armament, however, would not be a practical option for Japan even without the public opinion against nuclear weapons. It would be far too costly financially, politically, and diplomatically for Japan to possess a credible nuclear deterrence. To do so, Japan would need, in my view, nuclear submarines with submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs). Being a country of long-stretched islands surrounded by seas, Japan geographically lacks strategic depth, and, thus, its land-based systems would be vulnerable to a first strike.

To enable the SDF to implement the guidelines, Prime Minister Abe took yet another epoch-making step by changing the long-held interpretation of the constitution that had denied Japan the right of collective self-defense. The security legislation13 legalizing the change came into force in March 2016, making it possible, under certain conditions, for the SDF to exercise the right of collective self-defense. For instance, the SDF would now be able to defend US forces if they were to be engaged in operations to defend South Korea and use its missile defense systems to protect US territories.

The new NDPG aims to further strengthen SDF’s capabilities by adapting defense capabilities to the new strategic domains of space, cyberspace, and the electromagnetic spectrum. To this end, the new NDPG stresses the importance of rendering the SDF capable of integrated and cross-domain operations. Reflecting this development, the joint statement released by Japan and the United States at the 2+2 meeting in April 2019 stressed the two countries’ commitment to increase bilateral cooperation in new strategic domains. It affirmed the following for the first time: “A cyber attack could, in certain circumstances, constitute an armed attack for the purposes of Article V of the US-Japan Security Treaty.”14

Challenges to the Japan-US Alliance

The Japan-US Alliance, particularly Tokyo’s reliance on US extended deterrence, is now encountering a combination of unprecedented challenges from North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile development, the rise of China seeking to become a world power rivaling the United States, and a resurgent Russia trying to recover its superpower status to be on a par with the United States. While changes in the Sino-US and the US-Russia strategic balance could have significant implications for Japan’s long-term security, North Korea poses the most imminent threat to the country. Also worrying is Seoul’s changed policy toward North Korea, which has shifted its political focus from denuclearization of North Korea to reconciliation with Pyongyang.

North Korea’s Development of Nuclear Weapons and Missiles

Ever since the Cold War, Japanese security cooperation with the United States, particularly its willingness to support US efforts in defending South Korea, has been an essential part of America’s commitment to the security of South Korea. On top of this, Tokyo can no longer ignore the possibility that Pyongyang might directly threaten the country with nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, as Pyongyang is believed to possess biological and chemical weapons.

Worse still, North Korea’s development of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and SLBMs is posing an unprecedented challenge to the credibility of US extended deterrence, that is, threats to the US homeland itself. It could be argued that should North Korea be capable of directly attacking the US homeland with nuclear weapons, Washington might hesitate to retaliate against Pyongyang for the sake of its allies. Also, Pyongyang, counting on this possible US cautiousness, might be tempted to threaten or attack US allies with nuclear weapons.

But the question as to whether Pyongyang is capable of conducting a nuclear attack on the United States remains highly debatable. North Korean ICBM and SLBM capabilities have yet to be carefully assessed, and it is still presently unknown if Pyongyang’s nuclear warheads are able to reenter the earth’s atmosphere undamaged. Even if Pyongyang does possess such a capability, it would be suicidal for the regime to directly threaten or attack the US homeland.15 Washington would not hesitate to retaliate against such threats, and it would be able to effectively do so without employing nuclear weapons. Moreover, Washington is also strengthening its homeland missile defense system against North Korean (and Iranian) missiles, as stressed in the 2019 Missile Defense Review (MDR) report.¹⁶

Nevertheless, given the unpredictability of its reclusive leader, Kim Jong Un, and the lack of transparency of the capabilities of North Korean nuclear weapons and missile development, it is crucial for Washington and its allies to strengthen their efforts to deter Pyongyang, including their own missile defense systems. Decisions made after the failed 2019 Trump-Kim Summit in Hanoi to drastically reduce the scale of the US-South Korea joint military exercises were seemingly aimed at helping both diplomacy and cost-cutting. But they would adversely affect deterrence, particularly for South Korea.

While it is necessary for Japan to further strengthen its own missile defense, it is also important for Tokyo to expand its support for US efforts in enhancing the deterrence of North Korea and strengthening its own missile defense. In order to support US deterrence of North Korea, SDF vessels and fighters have been engaged in exercises to protect US vessels and strategic bombers heading to the Korean Peninsula since 2017. The SDF is able to conduct these exercises because of the previously mentioned new security legislation authorizing the SDF to exercise the right of collective self-defense. The 2018 NDPG that strengthened the SDF’s capabilities and broadened its operational domains also expanded the scope of its cooperation for the US deterrence of North Korea.

In order to further strengthen Japan-US cooperation on missile defense, the SDF would need to deepen its operational coordination and interoperability with US forces. It is also important for Tokyo to facilitate the deployment of necessary US assets in Japan for US homeland missile defense. Two sets of US X-band radars deployed in Japan are already aiding US homeland missile defense.

Softening of South Korea’s Position toward the North

It is imperative to keep pressuring Pyongyang to move toward complete denuclearization in a verifiable and irreversible manner. To that end, the implementation of UN Security Council (UNSC) sanctions is essential. But countries with stakes in Northeast Asia are not unanimous in implementing these sanctions. Beijing and Moscow are less enthusiastic than Washington and Tokyo in pressuring Pyongyang to fully comply with the relevant UN Security Council resolutions.

In November 2018, the South Korean government announced that it would dissolve the Japan-funded “comfort women” foundation established through a bilateral agreement reached between Seoul and Tokyo in December 2015 to “finally and irreversibly” settle the issue of former wartime sex slaves.17 And in December that same year, a South Korean naval vessel locked a fire control radar onto an SDF patrol aircraft flying over the Sea of Japan. Seoul’s emotional defense of its naval vessel’s action, wherein the blame was groundlessly pinned on the SDF aircraft, added to the acrimony between the two countries.

It is evident that cooperation between the United States and its two Northeast Asian allies would be crucial to both deterring and pressuring North Korea. But recent South Korean actions are counterproductive to such cooperation. If President Moon holds the view that Japanese support would be important for US forces’ operations in the defense of South Korea, he might assume that Tokyo would be obliged to support Washington no matter what Seoul would do to Tokyo. Or, he might be convinced that the contingency of requiring US defense operations for the defense of South Korea would be remote if reconciliation with the North were to progress. It is also possible that President Moon’s prioritization of reconciliation with the North might be an indication of his dream to place the Korean Peninsula under a new order to be created by the joint leadership of the two Koreas, or by the Koreans themselves.

Neither Washington nor Beijing is inclined to define a state of strategic relations between their two countries. However, it is widely believed that China is already in possession of certain deterrence capabilities vis-à-vis the United States, as it is capable of surviving a nuclear first strike and retaliating with nuclear weapons.18 The Chinese capabilities to deter the United States would by no means reduce the effect of US nuclear deterrence vis-à-vis China. This could lead to the conclusion (for now at least) that US extended deterrence for Japan would remain effective in relations with China so long as the alliance between Tokyo and Washington appears solid to Chinese eyes.

Apparently, Beijing is now aiming for parity in status with the United States in the future and superiority in the East Asian power hierarchy in the long run. It appears that Beijing is set on this trajectory as it has not officially responded to Washington’s calls for talks to deepen understanding of each other’s strategic thinking. Nor has it shown interest in the process of arms control, because it is possibly considering that Washington and Moscow should further reduce their nuclear arsenals.

Moreover, Chinese challenges to the American deterrence strategy are taking shape outside the bilateral nuclear force balance. Militarily, China has been taking an asymmetrical approach toward the strategic balance with the United States by focusing on the development of its capabilities in such domains as space, cyberspace, and the electromagnetic spectrum in which US capabilities could be vulnerable. Chinese expansion of its control in the South and East China Seas is seen as attempts to deny US forces access to those seas and to constrain the operations of US forces in the Western Pacific.

To further complicate the geopolitical landscape, President Xi Jinping’s ambitious initiatives, particularly the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and “Made in China 2025,” would have significant implications for the overall strategic balance between the United States and China. The development of maritime port facilities under the BRI could result in the expansion of Chinese naval operations. Moreover, the development of advanced technologies (such as 5G technologies) under the Made in China 2025 initiative could not only help China to overtake America in the development of future technologies, but also strengthen the Chinese military’s capability to conduct warfare and espionage.

Since the Cold War, Tokyo has believed that the mutual deterrence between the United States and Soviet Union/Russia would cover Japan through US extended deterrence. Japan is now more involved in US deterrence strategy than during the Cold War, particularly in missile defense. For example, Moscow already regards the Japanese missile defense system as part of the United States’ global network of missile defense threatening Russia’s deterrence capabilities. Moreover, a modified version of the SM3 Block IIA interceptor co-developed by Japan and the United States is slated for deployment for NATO defense. These could entail Japan’s involvement, if indirectly, in US-Russia arms control talks, or in Washington’s efforts to maintain strategic stability with Moscow.

At the Japan-US Security Consultative Committee (2+2) in April 2019, the Japanese ministers for foreign affairs and of defense as well as the US secretary of state and the acting secretary of defense affirmed the two countries’ commitment to realizing their shared vision of a “free and open Indo-Pacific.” By confirming the alignment of their two countries’ strategic thinking, they “decided that cooperation in cross-domain operations, enhancing the Alliance’s capabilities, and increasing operational readiness and cooperation should be core objectives to advanc[ing] . . . [their] defense relationship.”19 They also stressed the importance of developing capabilities and increasing operational cooperation in both conventional and nonconventional domains, such as space, cyberspace, and the electromagnetic spectrum.

The statement of the meeting, the first since August 2017, attests to the deepening and maturing Japan-US defense cooperation under the new concept of the deterrence of the Japan-US Alliance. As noted earlier, this concept, adopted in 2015 for the two countries’ defense cooperation, encompasses Japan’s defense efforts, Japan-US defense cooperation, US extended deterrence, and the two countries’ diplomacy, particularly in the Indo-Pacific. But, a seamless link between the three military functions, particularly one between Japan-US defense cooperation by conventional means and US extended nuclear deterrence, has yet to be fully incorporated into the two countries’ defense planning. Given the emerging challenges to and the continuous evolution of US deterrence strategy, the time has come for Tokyo and Washington to push the Extended Deterrence Dialogue to the next, more substantive consultation level with a view to strengthening their cooperation for the common deterrence. Such a step would not only further strengthen the alliance, but also help enhance the credibility of US extended deterrence in Japanese eyes. It is therefore important to organize such consultations at the ministerial 2+2 level.

1. For a classic account of the US-Japan Alliance during the Cold War, see Yukio Satoh, “Evolution of Japanese Security Policy,” Adelphi Papers, No. 178, International Institute for Strategic Studies, January 1982. For a more detailed discussion on the deterrence aspect of the Alliance, see the same author’s publications—Sashikakerareta Kasa [Extended Umbrella] (Tokyo: Jiji Press, 2017); and “U.S. Extended Deterrence and Japan’s Security,” Livermore Papers on Global Security, No. 2, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Center for Global Security Research, October 2017.

2. Daniel R. Coats, Director of National Intelligence, Statement for the Record: Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community (USA: Office of the Director of National Intelligence, January 2019), p. 4.

3. While the 1952 treaty between the two countries was a “Security Treaty” and the 1960 treaty was a “Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security,” this chapter will follow common usage and refer to the 1960 treaty as the Japan-US Security Treaty.

4. The official English translation of the Japanese title of the guidelines, Boei Keikaku Taiko, was later changed from National Defense Program Outlines (NDPO) to National Defense Program Guidelines (NDPG).

5. See J. A. A. Stockwin, The Japanese Socialist Party and Neutralism: A Study of a Political Party and its Foreign Policy (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1968); and Masashi Ishibashi, Unarmed Neutrality: A Path to World Peace (Tokyo: Socialist Party of Japan Organ Newspaper Bureau, 1985).

6. See Military Balance 2019, International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), February 2019.

7. The speech that Prime Minister Fukuda delivered in Manila in August 1977 laid out the tenets of that which subsequently became known as the Fukuda Doctrine. The Fukuda Doctrine was composed of three tenets: (a) Japan will reject the role of a military power, (b) Japan will do its best to consolidate the relationship of mutual confidence and trust with the countries of Southeast Asia through “heart-to-heart” understanding, and (c) Japan will be an equal partner of ASEAN and its member countries, while fostering a relationship of mutual understanding with the nations of Indochina. See Lam Peng Er, ed., Japan’s Relations with Southeast Asia: The Fukuda Doctrine and Beyond (New York and London: Routledge, 2013).

8. The SCC has also been referred to as “2+2” since it was agreed in 1990 that the cabinet-level secretaries would represent the US side. Earlier, the Japanese Foreign and Defense Ministers had met at the SCC with US ambassador to Japan and the commander of the US Pacific Command.

9. The mechanism is known as the Japan-US Extended Deterrence Dialogue. A similar dialogue has been taking place between Washington and Seoul since 2010.

10. The Three Nonnuclear Principles were first formulated as a policy in the late 1960s by Prime Minister Sato Eisaku, and later formalized by a resolution adopted in 1971 by the Lower House of the Japanese Parliament. In 1976, the Foreign Affairs Committees of both Lower and Upper Houses of the Parliament adopted and ratified the NPT as a “national principle” (kokuze) in separate resolutions.

11. United States Department of Defense, Nuclear Posture Review 2018 (Washington, DC: Office of the Secretary of Defense, February 2018).

12. For more information on Japan’s nuclear option, see, for example, Kurt M. Campbell and Tsuyoshi Sunohara, Japan: Thinking the Unthinkable (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2005); Christopher W. Hughes, “Japan’s Reemergence as a ‘Normal’ Military Power,” Adelphi Paper, Vol. 44, Issue 368–9, International Institute for Strategic Studies, 2007; Richard J. Samuels and James L. Schoff, “Japan’s Nuclear Hedge: Beyond ‘Allergy’ and Breakout,” in Strategic Asia 2013–14: Asia in the Second Nuclear Age, eds. Ashley J. Tellis, Abraham M. Denmark and Travis Tanner (Seattle: National Bureau of Asian Research, 2013).

13. The legislation is officially known as the Legislation for Peace and Security.

14. See “Joint Statement of the Security Consultative Committee,” Japan Ministry of Defense, April 19, 2019, available online at https://www.mod.go.jp/e/d_act/us/201904_js.html (accessed June 27, 2019); and “US to Defend Japan from Cyberattack under Security Pact,” Japan Times, April 20, 2019.

15. Robert A. Manning, The Future of US Extended Deterrence in Asia to 2025 (Washington, DC: Atlantic Council, 2014), p. 5.

16. United States Department of Defense, Missile Defense Review 2019 (Washington, DC: Office of the Secretary of Defense, 2019).

17. Dahee Kim, “Japan-funded ‘Comfort Women’ Foundation to be Dissolved: S. Korea,” Kyodo News, November 21, 2018; and He-suk Choi, “Japan-funded ‘Comfort Women’ Foundation to be Dissolved,” The Korean Herald, November 21, 2018.

18. Stephen Chen, “China Steps Up Pace in New Nuclear Arms Race with United States and Russia as Experts Warn of Rising Risk of Conflict,” South China Morning Post, May 28, 2018.

19. “Joint Statement of the Security Consultative Committee,” Japan Ministry of Defense, April 19, 2019.

Bibliography

Campbell, Kurt M., and Tsuyoshi Sunohara. Japan: Thinking the Unthinkable. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2005.

Chen, Stephen. “China steps up pace in new nuclear arms race with US and Russia as experts warn of rising risk of conflict.” South China Morning Post, May 28, 2018. Available online at https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2147304/china-steps-pace-new-nuclear-arms-race-us-and-russia-experts-warn. Accessed June 27, 2019.